House debates
Tuesday, 2 February 2016
Questions without Notice
Budget
2:52 pm
Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
My question is to the Prime Minister and refers to his claim a few moments ago that the $70 billion in savings identified and announced by Labor are 'modest and small'. Given the Prime Minister and Treasurer have also described Labor's $37 billion commitment to schools in the 'Your Child. Our Future' policy as 'large and unfunded', is the Prime Minister aware that $70 billion is a bigger number than $37 billion?
Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Swanny is back; why not ask him? I see you are back, Swanny!
Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The minister for immigration will cease interjecting!
2:53 pm
Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I thank the honourable member for his question. His technique of verballing, I am afraid to say, is not particularly effective. The claimed $70 billion in savings is a nonsense, and the honourable member knows that. The savings that the honourable member's party have announced do not result in $70 billion in savings, not by any measure. The items that they have hung their hat on—the increase in tobacco excise—
Mr Bowen interjecting—
Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
and the rules on gearing that have been announced in terms of multinational companies—do raise billions of dollars, that is true; but, in the context of the budgetary challenges we face, they are relatively modest compared to the challenges we face, which run into tens of billions of dollars. The black hole the honourable member left us was a massive deficit. He left us a $50 billion black hole, which we have been seeking to address—as the Treasurer just described.
Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—
Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
What the honourable member's party has failed to do is assist, in any way, in dealing with that, blocking savings measures proposed by the government and proposing a little bit of extra tax here and a bit of extra tax there—but adding up to $70 billion it does not do at all. The honourable member knows that full well. It does not add up to that sort of money. It does not add up to a solution that we need to address the challenges which we face, and it certainly does not provide an answer to the need that all Australians are asking for, which is: what is the government going to do, and what would an alternative Labor government do, to drive jobs and growth? All we hear from the Labor Party is the same old tired formula: more spending, more borrowing and more tax.
Ms Butler interjecting—
Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
No solutions. They set us on this road of debt and deficit.
Ms Butler interjecting—
Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Griffith has just been warned!
Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
In this House we all recall when that began. We are seeking to turn back from that. And all we hear from the Labor party is obstruction, confusion and a denial of the reality that the mess in which they left us, the economic problems we face that they created—
Ms Owens interjecting—
Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
they are doing nothing to assist us in resolving.